State of Exclusion

Published: Saturday, April 5, 2014 at 06:21 PM.

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Lenoir County Commission Chairman Craig Hill said the reports need to be evaluated and adjustments could be made in the area.

“I believe parts of the report were right, and other parts were off the mark,” Hill said. “Still, it causes us to stop, pause and listen to what they’re saying. At first glance, the issues regarding city and county school systems caught my eye, as well as the merger and voting districts. It doesn’t mean I agree with all of the opinions, but they certainly warrant a review.”

Antuan Hawkins, a librarian with the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library, said he was happy about UNC doing the report, but it just confirms what people felt the whole time.

In an unscientific March 31 poll conducted by The Free Press online, 96 people answered the question “do you feel there is still a racial divide in Eastern North Carolina?”

Of those polled, 88 percent said “yes,” 10 percent said “no” and 2 percent said “I don’t know.”

A study done by the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Civil Rights, which was released on March 24, focused on some of the exclusion issues in the area, particularly in Kinston and Lenoir County.

Peter Gilbert, an equal justice works fellow with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, along with UNC law students and attorneys, used Lenoir County as the first county in the state, starting a series of exclusion analysis, along with the legacy of racial segregation.

“Lenoir County was picked mostly because of its diversity,” Gilbert said. “We were interested in the history, and how it was involved in the repeal of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the history of the school district merger.”

Utilities

The report stated water and sewer services were equitably provided all over the county. Electricity was the biggest issue, as the report said “Electric rates are substantially higher in Kinston and La Grange, which supplement their city budgets with electric revenues. Most disadvantaged in this situation are African-American and Latino neighborhoods outside city boundaries that are nonetheless forced to buy electricity from the municipalities at inflated rates. The issue with ElectriCities is a statewide problem that cannot be solved by only Lenoir County; however, the municipalities ought to immediately cease any transfers to their general revenue.”

Kinston City Manager Tony Sears said the perspective of the city’s electricity was grossly inaccurate in the report.

“At no point did they contact anyone in the city regarding utilities,” Sears said. “They took a picture within two city blocks of the information they needed and they didn’t utilize people with real information.”

Government

In the Exclusion report, the representation in government was highlighted. The report stated Lenoir County is 51.3 percent white and 40.3 percent African-American, with five members on the board being white. In Kinston, the population is 67.7 percent African-American and 27.8 percent white, with the council being 50 percent with each ethnicity, including the mayor.

Gilbert said redistricting crippled the African-American vote in some areas in Lenoir County.

“I think the most important thing is having the goal of proportional representation,” Gilbert said. “The recent redistricting by the legislature was done, I think, hypocritically in the name of Section 5 and the majority and minority districts. What they did was they packed the districts and put way more African-American voters in the district than were necessary to ensure African-Americans could elect the candidate of their choice while reducing their power in the remaining districts.

“A number of studies have shown that a lot of times, a majority isn’t even necessary for African-Americans to have their choice candidate elected. If they are a majority of one party, and that party is in the district, then that is often sufficient. When they draw districts, like District 1, that includes part of Lenoir County, where they pack a majority of African American voters into one district, it effectively decreases African-American representation in state government and federal government as a whole.”

Kinston Mayor B.J. Murphy also said it would’ve been better for the group to talk to the leaders in the community before making the report in all areas.

“If the focus of the document is to say the minority population — which is the majority population in Kinston — is underrepresented, the professor and the students failed to acknowledge that for the first time in the city of Kinston’s history, a majority of the voting members in council are, in fact, minorities,” Murphy said. “For this document to be publicly recognized and promoted by the UNC system, one would expect them to at least pick up the phone for interviews with prospective leaders to understand what it means to run an electric business, water, sewer, and infrastructure. The study obviously shows that the professor and students do not understand how the government’s local commission works and how the electric business works. A simple phone call and interview could’ve shed some light before they posted their ‘findings.’”

Education

The report focused on the school district merger in 1992 between Lenoir County and Kinston, with the school district using a feeder assignment model dividing the district into three zones corresponding to the three public high schools in the county — North Lenoir, South Lenoir and Kinston High.

Gilbert said there are corresponding issues with educational performances due to some of the discrepancies.

“It isn’t just about racial segregation — which in itself is a problem — but it’s also, in Kinston, as well as across the state, where you have schools that are hypersegregated, schools that are racially isolated and high-poverty schools,” Gilbert said. “There are corresponding issues you have with educational performances that cannot be overcome without socioeconomic and racial integration, and diversity. The issues at Kinston High and the schools in the Kinston High assignment zone face with educational performances are largely due to the underlying facts of the assignment policy.

“The assignment district for Kinston High and the schools that feed Kinston High is actually a higher percentage African-American, even in the city itself. It’s as if the lines are being drawn to further segregate the schools, rather than the intention of integrating and having diverse and inclusive schools. I think what’s required is the school board and for the county as a whole to make a commitment to racially integrated, socioeconomically diverse schools, and then, from that perspective, drawing new assignment zones which flow from that. “

Lenoir County Commissioner Jackie Brown said she was astonished when she read the report about the divide.

“Students in elementary and middle schools are drawn only from the assignment areas, and then you have others not following the line,” Brown said. “Certain folks don’t want to go to certain schools. If everyone was mandated to go to the schools in the district, we might be better off, but a lot of folks don’t want to go to Rochelle (Middle School); instead they would go to (Arendell) Parrott of Bethel (Christian Academy), and both are more than 90 percent white. This report has some startling results in education, but it raises more questions than it does answers.”

Doug Phillips, principal at Bethel Christian, said the school welcomes all nationalities and ethnicities, but several issues could prevent families from enrolling their children.

“It’s a private institute, and we don’t have things such as financial aid, scholarships, grants,” Phillips said. “I would love to see more diversity, and there was a great opportunity with a tuition program for private schools until (superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood) from Raleigh pulled the plug on that. We had quite a few families in Kinston who had applied.”

Maya Swinson, the principal at Rochelle — the only middle school in the city and more than 90 percent African-American — said her focus is on improving the school.

“I believe progress is being made and more members of the community are getting involved,” Swinson said. “This report will open up good conversations that need to happen. I live here, love my job and as an administrator, I do my best to make this place great for the students. We’re currently working on an ‘I Am Rochelle’ movement and the students, teachers and administrators are all helping each other.”

Lenoir County Superintendent Stephen Mazingo said the exclusion report doesn’t have the human element, and called the document a study by the numbers.

“It’s fairly hard to draw conclusions and make a recommendation on something strictly on statistics,” Mazingo said. “It leaves out the human perspective and the dynamic of the community. For example, Parrott is truly a regional private school and about a third of the students come from Lenoir County.”

“There is a lot to improve in the district, and we went to offer more than basic education. We’re looking at fine arts schools and the possibility of magnet schools for underpopulated institutions where student populations have fallen over time. We want public schools to be more attractive because with other options such as online schools, homeschooling and private institutions, public schools don’t have the monopoly it once had.”

Where do we go from here?

Kinston City Councilman Robbie Swinson said the area has a long way to go for change.

“When I read the report, I was blown away by the information and statistics,” Swinson said. “We need to make changes and make Kinston a better place to work, live and play. It’s 2014, and when you look at the statistics, it’s mind-blowing how things are. I grew up here, went to school here and being aware of the information now, I thought things had changed tremendously for the better, but it seems like it hasn’t.”

Lenoir County Commission Chairman Craig Hill said the reports need to be evaluated and adjustments could be made in the area.

“I believe parts of the report were right, and other parts were off the mark,” Hill said. “Still, it causes us to stop, pause and listen to what they’re saying. At first glance, the issues regarding city and county school systems caught my eye, as well as the merger and voting districts. It doesn’t mean I agree with all of the opinions, but they certainly warrant a review.”

Antuan Hawkins, a librarian with the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library, said he was happy about UNC doing the report, but it just confirms what people felt the whole time.

“It was released by an independent group, so it was done in a nonbiased way,” Hawkins said. “Hopefully, the report will get people talking, coming to a better place and connecting better. When you look at the report, it doesn’t put us in a good light, but it may have us moving in the right direction later to make Kinston and Lenoir County better.”

Theresa Williams-Bethea, founder of Young Women of Promise, said Gilbert will speak at a community meeting at St. Augustus AME Zion Church at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 14.

“He’ll be providing an overview on the report and several key people in the county have been invited,” Williams-Bethea said. “There are different pages of the report highlighting certain things, so we want to have city and county representatives, people from the human relations council and the school systems. Of course, the entire community is invited to give reaction to the report. This doesn’t paint the best picture of Kinston, but it’s the truth, and now we’re at that point where we try to figure out where to go from here.”

Julian Pridgen, pastor at St. Augustus AME Zion Church, said he hopes to learn more about the exclusion report in the meeting.

“I really would like to hear more details from the group on how they put the report together and made their assessment, and then have dialogue with them,” Pridgen said. “Hopefully, we can get the community out to hear what Peter Gilbert says so we can have a community dialogue if possible.”

– Staff writer Wes Wolfe contributed to this story.

Junious Smith III can be reached at 252-559-1077 and Junious.Smith@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JuniousSmithIII.

A community meeting has been scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, April 14 at St. Augustus AME Zion Church, located at 318 East North Street. If you would like to see a copy of the exclusion report, you can view it at tinyurl.com/lenoirexclusion.